"You actually wrote a tragic ending!"
The Duke of Bones sat furiously at the long table in the hall as she looked at Joshua who was busy editing.
The Duke of Bones should have been furious at those despicable humans for barging into her territory, yet the moment she watched the complete sample of "Beauty and the Demon", two tiny soulfires seeped out of her empty eye sockets, and she felt a little sentimental.
However, she did not wallow in it for too long as the Duke of Bones remembered that the screenwriter of the movie was just right beside her! So, the duke rushed over and gave him a live delivery of razor blades.
"Your Grace, if you are not satisfied with the story, you can rewrite the script make it end happily."
Joshua held his charcoal pencil as he outlined a spherical shape, answering the duke without even raising his head.
"Your Highness, you mean, I can change the ending?"
The Duke of Bones' not-so-friendly tone seemed to imply that. If Joshua permitted her, she would really amend the ending by force.
"What I mean is you can write a story you want using this story as a template. Anyone can do it."
Joshua's method of creation was called an adaptation back on Earth. In more niche terms, it would be called fan-fiction.
"Beauty and the Beast" movies seen in the later generations were all adaptations of the original, be it the Disney or the French version. All of them were movie adaptations instead of the original work, and so was Joshua's.
Joshua did not oppose to the people of this world adapting "Beauty and the Beast". In fact, he even encouraged it.
That was because having multiple adaptations would allow the story to spread far and wide...
Joshua only had one request that any person who adapted the work would credit the original author, Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont. Mrs. Beaumont was the original author of "Beauty and the Beast", a female French writer.
It was also Joshua's requirement for himself. He had never planned to claim the work as his own in this world. After all, Joshua was there to propagate Earth's culture, not to plagiarize it.
As a proper propagator of culture, that was the most basic of requirements.
"I have not reached that level of humiliating myself."
The Duke of Bones pondered a bit before she gave up the idea. She really did not have any creative bone on her.
"In that case, Your Grace, can you... tell me your full name?"
Joshua paused his writing. Ever since he forged the covenant with the Duke of Bones, Joshua only knew the duke's first name, but not her family name.
"Your Highness, is there any meaning to that question?"
"I would like to tell the audience who gave the movie its soundtrack."
Joshua completely blackened a long piece of paper before he wrote the cast list with white paint. The first person on the list was, of course, Mrs. Beaumont, while the second person was Ynor who played Belle, and Zenarth who played the prince. Even the names of the ghosts who played the living furniture were included, alongside a few villagers who made cameos, and Ciri Lloyd.
"My family name is not important, Your Highness. I am satisfied just as long as you record my name down."
The Duke of Bones seemed to particularly resent her surname, but since she requested it, Joshua only wrote her given name. "Music: Selonica."
The last series of names were all Joshua's. Director, Planner, Scriptwriter, Propmaker, Cinematography, Camera Operation, Editing, and what not were all Joshua Annerlaude.
After expending so much effort to produce the movie, Joshua was definitely not shy about crediting himself.
After he was done with the credits, the production of the opening credits remained.
The opening credits were nothing more than a means to show off the logo of a studio. Joshua pondered a while before he finally drew the logo of Earth on the paper before he wrote "Production of Studio Earth" in both Chinese as well as English.
While it may look a little silly, the spinning blue planet was the go-to logo Joshua would use in the future. After all, all of these movies and novels originated from Earth.
The spinning effect was done with basic continuous page flip animation as Joshua had yet to figure out how to insert pictures into the programs he had written.
"And... done."
After Joshua completed the opening and ending credits, he recorded them into the originium crystal, declaring that the final product of "Beauty and the Demon: had been successfully produced.
"Your Grace, this is a memento for you."
Joshua took out an empty originium crystal and made a copy before he gave it to the Duke of Bones.
The entire filming process used up about a hundred originium crystals. After learning the white magic taught by Ciri, Joshua had managed to reuse the crystals and actually did not consume all that much.
"Your Highness, you plan to screen this move in the Human Realms next?"
The Duke of Bones took the originium crystal from Joshua. She had already heard about Joshua's ambition a while back. Joshua would not just stop at letting a hundred or two people watch the movie. His ambition was the entire world!"
"Of course, the first stop is Norland, the City of Magic," Joshua said.
As to the exact location of the screening, Joshua had yet to figure it out. When the time came, he would ask Ciri to inquire about it. After all, she knew the Human Realms better than he did.
At that moment, a ghost suddenly floated to Joshua's side. He was the Duke of Bones' majordomo who played the role of the teacup in the movie.
The majordomo put down a badge on the table next to Joshua's hand before he disappeared.
Joshua picked up the delicately engraved badge. It was marked with a flower, and within the badge was magic that could not be described with words.
The surface of the badge looked like it had some age to it, with many marks of wear and tear on it.
"This is..."
"Something from a time long passed that is useless to me. Your Highness, you can take this badge and seek help from the Dalk Family. If I'm not wrong, this family should be in the theater business," the Duke of Bones said.
"Understood."
The badge, which the Duke of Bones gave him undoubtedly opened up a new door for Joshua. But Joshua did not ask a lot since the duke seemed to resent her family name so much that there had to be a past she did not wish to speak of.
"Then I shall bid my farewells for the time being. Your Grace, when I visit the next time, I will definitely invite you to perform in a theater. Here are the musical scores I've compiled."
Joshua packed up the items on the table before he passed on a thick stack of musical scores to the Duke of Bones. In them were some of the greatest works by musical maestros from Earth.
"A performance... I do not expect such a near-impossible thing to happen, but Your Highness... if you have completed your next movie, please do give it to me in advance."
It looked like the Duke of Bones had found a treasure as she put away the scores, which Joshua gave her before she responded to him.
Was she addicted to movies now? Such entertainment was indeed a novel thing for the denizens of this world.
"Of course."
After accepting the request, Joshua picked up his suitcase and went up to the gate of the duke's castle.
Ciri had already been waiting outside the castle for a long time now.
"We are going back to the human world. Excited?" Joshua walked down the stairs to Ciri's side and asked.
"Returning to the human world? Wait... forget about that. Hurry up and play a game of Pong with me!"
Ciri threw down the gauntlet at Joshua. Ever since the completion of the filming, Ciri had been on a Pong showdown with Joshua. Of course, the result was her being defeated by Joshua with a ten-game winning streak.
That completely roused Ciri's competitive streak.
"Can you wait until we get on the carriage?"
"Sure!"
Joshua had originally thought that the replay value of the little game was not that great. It was not even worth the playtime for Joshua. After all, with the various triple A masterpieces back on Earth, Joshua was already a little fatigued aesthetically.
Nonetheless, the essence of video games was to bring joy and fun to the players, and Pong seemed to bring great fun to Ciri, simple as it may be.
Ciri immediately ran into the carriage that Zenarth was driving before patting the seat, signaling for Joshua to quickly get on.
Joshua could already see what Ciri would become when the age of the Internet actually arrived.
He did not think that the age was not too far away since he had essentially brutally kicked the door of the era wide open.